This International Women’s Day, ladies everywhere will celebrate breaking the glass ceiling in industries of all kinds. And while the global tech industry has copped its fair share of criticism as being male-dominated, in the heart of Berlin’s booming start-up scene things are starting to change.
The city’s flourishing tech scene has become one of the world’s tech hotspots and female leaders are right at the forefront of this innovative movement. Within Silicon Allee, the German capital’s thriving start-up community, women are now starting to lead the way.
Lamudi, a Rocket-Internet venture, serves as a platform for emerging real estate markets across the globe. In its stable of 75 successful start-ups worldwide, the incubator has a strong team of women to thank for its achievements. Lamudi alone boasts three female managing directors worldwide, as well as three directors located in their Berlin HQ. More than half of their workforce in Berlin is also female.
Malen Gomez, head of SEO at Lamudi, says the industry has developed enormously over the past 10 years. "The tech industry has changed so much over the last decade that now it isn’t rare at all to see a woman heading up global teams in this field. My role within Lamudi shows the huge potential for females within the world of start-ups," she says.
While the tech arena is still a man’s world, there is no question that women are gaining ground in the industry. From industry leaders like Julia Kaganskiy, the editor-at-large for VICE magazine’s The Creators Project, to Twitter engineer Sara Haider, women are making their mark on this growing sector.
There are countless others who not only lead the way in making female voices heard within the tech community, but who have also taken an innovative approach to the industry as a whole.
Jacqueline van den Ende, founder and managing director of Lamudi Philippines, said women can bring something different to the table in the tech sector.
"I feel that we particularly excel in creating a motivated and collaborative company culture. Paying attention to people before targets helps to create a team in which every single person is the best he or she can be. As a woman in a male-dominated setting I often feel you are in a position of strength rather than weakness," she said.
